conknive << connive

“Connive,” which derives from a Latin word for shutting the eyes, debuted English in the seventeenth century in its literal sense, applied to situations in which one purposefully did not look at an event. Eventually the term acquired the additional senses of pretended innocence, indulgence, and covert sympathy. Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day points out that Wilson Follett, the great critic of English usage in the early decades of the twentieth century, lamented that the word “was undone during the Second World War, when restless spirits felt the need of a new synonym for plotting, bribing, spying, conspiring, engineering a coup, preparing a secret attack.” The conniving of ordinary speakers carried the day: “connive” is now used almost exclusively in this new, broad sense

To conspire against a friend, says a popular idiom, is like driving a knife into his back. Perhaps this is why several dozen web pages employ the spelling “conknive.”

Celebrity watch site: “the audience votes count for more and I find her to be conkniving amongst other things”

Apartment review: “.Management is manipulative & conkniving and will try to go up on the rent every year & fix NOTHING”